


The Monster Inside

by Taste_is_Sweet



Series: Dread and Darling Boys [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bingo, Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Mention of Harm to a Child, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Season/Series 01, Sleep Deprivation, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 11:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1776943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Taste_is_Sweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Agent Taylor taps the tablet and now the picture's the little girl. She's in a bright blue sundress and smiling. "I need you to kill her. I need you to finish your mission. Can you do that?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He wants to. He wants to make Agent Taylor happy so she won't need to hurt him again. But the girl's so little and she was so scared, and he can't. He can't.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Monster Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, huge thanks to [Brumeier](http://brumeier.livejournal.com/) for the beta.
> 
> This story fills the **Forced to Hurt Somebody** square of my [Hurt/Comfort Bingo](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/) [card](http://taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com/85941.html).

He's always been a good soldier.

He doesn't know if he was ever actually a soldier before, but he is one now and soldiers obey and he's very good at that. He does what he's told, and he does it well. Quickly, efficiently and clean. Agent Taylor has told him many times how good he is, how useful. He likes that, being useful, because he knows if he fails they'll hurt him.

They haven't hurt him yet, but he's pretty sure that this time they will. He didn't fail his mission, but the assassination wasn't quick, and it wasn't clean. He knows somebody saw him. He doesn't think the girl will be able to I.D. him, but he's not certain. 

He's supposed to be certain.

He's also supposed to be at his rendezvous point right now. Not shivering in this disgusting corner of an abandoned building, trying to breathe with blood filling his lung. The girl shouldn't've been there, not so late at night. But she came in and started screaming when he garroted her father, and that alerted the guards. He killed them all, but not before he got shot. And now he's holed up in an abandoned building waiting for the manhunt to die down enough to allow him to get to the rendezvous.

He coughs. It hurts, and blood spatters his chin. He wipes it off with the side of his hand, feeling the cold of the metal and the way the seams in his finger joints catch on his skin. He doesn't remember how he got so badly injured that he lost both his arms. He doesn't remember how he got any of his scars. He only knows they came from before he was the Asset, when he didn't heal fast and his arms were real and he had a name.

Agent Taylor calls him 'Ward', sometimes. He doesn't know if that was his name—it doesn't feel like his name—but he supposes it fits. He belongs to Hydra, but she's the one who looks after him.

She's going to be the one who punishes him, too. Once he gets out of here.

He just wishes he could stop shivering.

The girl. She couldn't've been more than five, with long black hair and big, dark eyes and a pretty white nightgown that got blood all over it when she ran to her father's body. She saw him. She _saw_ him: his face and his eyes and the blood on his metal hands. And she screamed and screamed and he should have just killed her before anyone came. But she was so small and so scared and she was crying, and she saw him and he just…froze. And then the guards came in and he killed them and ran, but he left her behind. And now he can't stop thinking of her tear-streaked face and he's shivering so badly his teeth are chattering and he can't stop it.

Weakness is unacceptable. Taylor is going to punish him for it. He knows it's what he deserves.

He can't hear sirens or helicopters or the police searching on foot anymore. It's time to come out. If he's lucky his handlers are still waiting for him. If he's not, he'll have to go to the secondary rendezvous point, which is far outside the city. With his injury he won't be able to move fast, and he's not sure how quickly he can heal with the bullet still lodged in his lung.

He has to clench his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering, but he's almost silent as he eases out of the building into the frigid darkness of this European backwater town. He can smell the rot of the nearby harbor, hear the sigh of the wind over the water and the first of the day's fishing boats going out to sea. There are still sirens in the distance, but too far away for him to care about.

The nearer rendezvous is about an hour's walk from here, but he'll have to go slower than that because of his injury and to avoid being seen. It will probably take most of the day. He's really not looking forward to that, but he'll get there.

There's a moment, while he's edging along an alleyway, shadows surrounding him and only the dark of the harbor beyond, that he stops. Thinks about not going back to the chair and the cylinder and Taylor and her punishment. For just a moment he thinks about running.

He wonders if there is anyone, anywhere, waiting for him. If there ever was, before he woke up without arms or memories. But when he tries to imagine it, he can only think of the little girl with the tears in her dark eyes.

The girl's eyes feel familiar somehow. Like there was someone else who looked at him that way and saw the monster inside. His past is a husk, but he remembers what monsters are. He knows that he is one. 

He should've killed the girl. He knows he should've killed her. If he had he wouldn't be feeling like—

He doesn't know, except he's shaking and he wants to run and never go back.

But Agent Taylor is waiting for him. So are his handlers. And he's a good soldier and he always does what he's told. So he grits his teeth and exhales steam into the cold air, and pushes away from the wall and starts walking.

* * *

They don't let him eat or sleep for twenty two days.

They take the bullet out first, at least, so he can heal. And they let him drink, because even he would die after so many days without water. But by the time Agent Taylor sends for him he can't walk and he can't keep his eyes open, and he keeps seeing things on the edge of his vision that vanish when he tries to look at them.

Agent Taylor brings him food and coffee, then has one of the doctors give him something that wakes him up enough to actually consume it. He's so tired and so incredibly grateful that he can't keep the tears out of his eyes. Weakness is unacceptable, but Agent Taylor just smiles at him and pets his hair and tells him she understands; it's been a hard few days, it's all right.

"I'm so sorry we had to do that," she says once he's finished his meal and can give her his full attention. "I didn't want to, but there was no choice. Not after what you did." She's still standing so he has to look up at her. He can't stand her disappointment. "Do you understand why we had to do that?"

He nods. "I left the girl."

"That's right. I'm glad you understand that. There can never be witnesses. I hope you won't forget that again."

He shakes his head. "No, I won't. I'm sorry."

"I know you are." Agent Taylor cards her fingers through his hair again, but she frowns. "Unfortunately, your failure has left us in a very difficult position." She snaps her fingers and an agent hands her a tablet that she puts on the table in front of him. There's a picture on it of a man with black hair and eyes, standing against a wall used for criminal lineups. He's heavyset, thick and powerful and angry. The lines behind the man say he's five feet and nine inches tall. There's a hard set to his mouth, and his eyes are cruel.

Ward stares at the picture, heart hammering though he doesn't know why. "I know him," he says. Maybe if he wasn't so tired he could remember how, or from where, but right now there's nothing but the recognition that makes him want to recoil in fear. "I know him," he says again, and he's so scared it's hard to breathe. He looks up at Agent Taylor. "Why? Why do I know him?"

"Because you've fought him before," she says. "You've fought him, so you remember what he's like. He's a monster, Ward." She looks at him earnestly. "He's a monster who hurts children. You remember that, don't you? What he does to little boys and girls?"

Ward nods jerkily. He remembers fists and the terrified eyes of another boy and being so, so angry and afraid. He remembers a child drowning—him?—and helplessness that he would do anything, _anything_ to never feel again. He remembers fire and fear and rage and pain, and pain, and pain.

He swallows. There are new tears on his face. He's shaking like back in the building. He wants to throw up.

"Shh, shh. It's all right," Agent Taylor says. She rubs his back until he doesn't feel so much like he's about to crack apart, then taps the tablet and now the picture's the little girl. She's in a bright blue sundress and smiling. "I need you to kill her. I need you to finish your mission. Can you do that?"

He wants to. He wants to make Agent Taylor happy so she won't need to hurt him again. But the girl's so little and she was so scared, and he can't. He can't.

"Oh dear," Agent Taylor says sadly. "I can understand how you feel. I really do. But I'm afraid your reluctance will make things very difficult." She taps the screen again, and the monster comes back. "The girl has to die. I know you know that. But if you don't do it, we'll have to send him."

"No," Ward stares at Agent Taylor, sick with horror. "You can't do that."

"We'll have to," she says with regret. "And you know what he'll do to her, don't you? He won't make it quick or clean. We both know what a man like that does to little girls."

"No! No, please. Please, don't send him. Don't hurt her." Ward's sobbing now. He's too exhausted to control it, just like he can't control his shivering or the fear that feels like it's ripping his chest apart. 

"We don't have any choice," Agent Taylor says. "Of course, I _know_ you'd do it properly. You'd make it quick and painless, no suffering. But you didn't do it when you had the chance, and apparently you still won't do it now. So, it has to be him."

"No. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll kill her," Ward begs. "Please. Let me kill her. I'll protect her. I won't let her get hurt. Please, please let me kill her instead of him."

"Are you sure?" Agent Taylor says sternly. "Look at me," she orders. When he does she studies his face. "You have to be absolutely certain. You can't fail me again."

He swallows, nodding frantically. "I won't fail, I promise. I'll do it."

"I believe you," she says, nodding. "All right, then. We'll send you instead."

"Thank you. Thank you." He babbles his gratitude, and when he reaches for her, unconsciously seeking comfort, she lets him fist her suit jacket and lean his face against her stomach as he cries his relief like a child. She rubs his back and tells him it's all right, it's all right. And she doesn't even mind that her jacket is wet and wrinkled when she gently pushes him away.

Then she calls the guards in to take him to his room, and finally he can sleep.

He's glad he came back; she treats him so much better than he deserves.

* * *

The little girl dies in the garden of the mansion where he killed her father. One quick bullet between her eyes, shot from so far away that he's long gone before anyone can even trace the direction the shot came from. Nice and clean. No one sees him.

He tells himself over and over again how he did the right thing, until finally the shivering goes away.

Agent Taylor tells him how useful he is, how proud she is of him. And she allows him to be strapped down in the chair and have all of it ripped out of him so he doesn't have to remember.

* * *

He doesn't know why she's so happy with him when he wakes up, but Agent Taylor tells him it's because he did an excellent job on his last mission. He doesn't remember, but he likes it. Because he knows if he fails they'll hurt him.

She puts a tablet down on the table in front of him, and for a moment he's so apprehensive that he doesn't want to touch it. But then Agent Taylor taps the screen and it's just a picture and it's fine.

"That's your next target," she says. "This one will take a lot of planning, because he's very high-profile and rarely alone. Agent Laboume will discuss possible methods with you. She'll be here in a moment.

"Is there a problem, Ward?" Her voice hardens a little. "You seem uncertain."

He shakes his head quickly and looks up at her. "No, no problem." He ignores the horrified voice in the back of his head screaming that he can't do this; that this man is too necessary, too _good_ to die like this. Ward does what he's told, and he's not going to fail.

He's always been a good soldier, so he says nothing else and waits for Agent Laboume to come in, so they can plan how to kill Captain America.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> It really hit me while I was reading all the fantastic CA2 fic, just how vulnerable the Winter Soldier/Hydra's Asset would be. With no real memories, his existence would have no greater context than whatever he was experiencing at the moment. Even leaving aside the virtual certainty of Stockholm Syndrome, he could be led to believe pretty much anything.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [stars are only visible (in darkness)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1779409) by [lady_laverty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_laverty/pseuds/lady_laverty)




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